January's fingers

January's fingers always find me
as I tread warily over a crust of snow,
brittle and vulnerable as old bones. His arthritic digits,
crippled with cold, ache to clutch my warm skin.
It always begins as a blue-veined fondling, then the sudden
shackling of ice-handcuffs. His biting breath lifts my scarf
from my neck, forces its way under my collar,
rushes down my shirt.

I want to sprint across the barrenness, to suck
breath after cold breath as he thrusts his icy tongue
down my throat. January's fingers press into the back of my head,
numb my skin and skull. Then his arctic hardness
slams against me.